BY MARK B. SOLOMON, EXECUTIVE EDITOR–NEWS
MOTOR FREIGHT
transportationreport
IT WAS LAUNCHED FIVE YEARS AGO
with little fanfare. It has mostly driven under
the radar since then, despite its association
with perhaps the world’s most famous brand.
Now, it has hit the nation’s highways full-bore in an effort to become its parent’s next
billion-dollar-a-year business.
In 2010, senior executives at Charlotte, N.C.-based Coca-Cola Bottling Co. Consolidated,
the largest independent U.S. bottler of Coca-Cola products, recognized that demand for
truck capacity to carry Atlanta-based Coke’s
products had leveled off within its geographies, a trend that mirrored a broader trend
of slowing demand for many of the beverage
giant’s products. The executives also knew
the bottler’s trucks generally returned empty
after the drivers made their deliveries, a common scenario for private fleets whose mission
is to return to the base location to load up the
company’s freight for another run.
In an effort to boost the fleet’s capacity
utilization and develop a whole new revenue
To get the operation off the ground, Red Classic’s trucks—the unit operates 500 power units pulling 53-foot trailers—transported mostly backhaul
shipments from Coke’s raw materials vendors, as well as materials to be consumed by the bottler. But as the unit got its sea legs, the emphasis began to
change. Today, Red Classic has 200 non-Coke customers and is angling for
far more. Red Classic’s fleet now handles more headhaul traffic than it does
backhaul shipments. About 60 percent of its overall revenue, the amount of
which the unit would not disclose, comes from freight tendered by property
brokers that arrange transport for shippers.
